Startup: Portland-based Poachedjobs.com focuses on finding good help for the food industry

View full sizeRoss William Hamilton/The Oregonian Kirk Thornby (left) and Peter Bro launched poachedjobs.com to find qualified applicants for the high-turnover restaurant industry. The site, launched last year in Portland, also serves the Seattle, Chicago, Austin, San Francisco and New York markets.

For too long, restaurateur Peter J. Bro was exasperated by the response he got to his job postings.

He, like many others in the food business, regularly used Craigslist to advertise jobs at one of his establishments, including Broder, the Swedish restaurant in Southeast Portland.

"But I got tired of using it," he says, lamenting the effort it took to sort through the barrage of candidates, many of them unqualified for the food and beverage world.

So Bro and business partner Kirk Thornby launched Poachedjobs.com, a jobs site specific to the restaurant industry. The two hope it will streamline the hiring process and fill a gap in an industry famous for its high and relentlessly constant turnover.

Poachedjobs.com 

Founders: Peter J. Bro and Kirk Thornby 

Address: 204 S.E. Oak St., Portland 

What it is/makes: A jobs listing site for the restaurant industry that operates in six cities, including Portland. Part-time representatives work in each city outside Portland. 

Funding: Undisclosed. Founders Peter J. Bro and Kirk Thornby say they used personal savings to start the venture. However, they also say they are contemplating looking for an outside investor in the next three or four months. 

Revenue: Undisclosed. Bro and Thornby said they made about $8,000 last month. 

In their words: “In the restaurant world, you have to stay relevant. You have to expand or develop a new business. This was an open field, no competitors except Craigslist.” — Peter J. Bro

“We want to keep things simple for everyone.” — Kirk Thornby 

The site, launched about a year ago, allows qualified applicants to post résumés and hiring managers to more easily screen hopefuls for relevant experience.

"On Poachedjobs, the quality of applicants is higher," says Abi Wulf, general manager of Produce Row Cafe in Southeast Portland. "For the most part, the people have the experience you want. I only use Poached now."

So far, Bro and Thornby say, Poachedjobs has posted around 4,000 listings for about 1,000 clients in the six cities it serves: Portland, Seattle, Chicago, Austin, San Francisco and New York. The owners say the site attracts roughly 80,000 monthly visitors, 50,000 of them unique. In Portland, where the site first launched, Poachedjobs gathers about 30,000 monthly visitors, 20,000 of them unique.

Still, revenue's been modest; the site made $8,000 last month, for example. That's not enough to draw a salary for either founder.

"We're in the sweat equity phase right now," says Thornby, 51, a design industry veteran who has never worked in the restaurant business. In 2008, he sold a high-end computer bag company he started, Acme Made, to a private equity firm before exiting that business in 2011.

Bro, 43, is an industry veteran who's been involved with numerous local restaurants since coming to Portland in 1996. In addition to Broder, he owns Savoy Tavern + Bistro. And he just recently sold the Aalto Lounge.

Thornby and his wife are regulars at Broder, which is where the two founders met. One night, Bro talked about his startup idea. Thornby, who was leaving Acme at the time, was intrigued.

Soon, the two decided to team up, combining Bro's food industry experience with Thornby's marketing acumen. Their first step was to conduct exploratory interviews with industry professionals and gather their input. One suggestion kept popping up: Keep things simple.

Applicants, for example, post résumés in response to a job listing. Employers, in turn, peruse those resumes, delete the ones they don't want and keep those they like.

Bro and Thornby have also priced services comparably, matching Craigslist's one-time job posting fee of $25. They also offer discount packages for multiple job listings by an employer, which Craigslist doesn't.